In short: You are already enough. Right now. Right this second. And when you let that wash over you, when you feel yourself believing it, let yourself imagine what life would hold for you if you felt that way all the time.

"The Biggest Loser" claims it is a "public service." I don't believe that a 100 million dollar business that exploits the physical and mental health of its participants, treats people as though they are subhuman, and deceives its viewers is a public service. I just don't.

The truth is, for the better part of eight or nine years, I've managed to hide a rather ugly secret. Not totally -- I'm not the slickest person on the planet, and I've been known to leave behind chocolate-coated fingerprints and cookie crumbs in my wake -- but well enough.

I can tell my daughter that nothing is as beautiful as her little body exactly as it is no matter if she is tall, short, big or small. But I am sure she sees through my platitudes. Because she sees a mom who is always on a diet. She sees a mom who looks in the mirror and sighs.

I don't even know how I know of this number. Only that I know it, and my friends know it, and my mom knows it. Somehow, somewhere along the road, I was taught that if I want to have a flat stomach and tight tushy, I need to limit my calories to 1,200 a day and do cardio.

I had imagined a triumphant moment that involved eating a whole cake with my hands without breaking eye contact and saying, "YES, I HAVE BEEN A BULIMIC AND ANOREXIC FOR SEVEN YEARS. BUT NOW I AM BETTER. I AM EATING THIS CAKE BECAUSE I WANT IT AND I'M HUNGRY."

I still maintain that sipping a glass of wine with friends is one of life's greatest pleasures. The ritual nature of an after-work drink is both what makes it so comforting -- and potentially dangerous

We tend to see eating disorders, our general cultural anxiety about food and weight and skyrocketing obesity rates as separate problems with separate solutions. Instead, we need to recognize that they all stem from the same root. Obesity isn't the opposite of anorexia (or bulimia or disordered eating or just distorted thinking about food). It's its twin.